It used to be a running joke amongst various people I know that the inevitable answer to the question “Where did you go on holiday?” each summer would be “Walt Disney World“. When we started going there were just the two theme parks, the Magic Kingdom and EPCOT Center. I don’t think I realised it at the time, but perhaps even then EPCOT was my favourite park. Spaceship Earth (about the development of human communication) and Horizons (about the technological developments coming in the near future) were probably my favourite rides in the park with Journey Into Imagination (with Captain EO next door) and the original ImageWorks quite high up there too… and World of Motion. I suppose being a Web Developer with a keen love of cars, driving and motorsport that all makes sense.
It is sad to think really that Horizons was demolished and replaced, Journey Into Imagination had many revamps that weren’t as good as the original and ImageWorks was removed. Test Track was an improvement on World of Motion, but it did seem like a lot of holidays were spent wondering if and when it would open. That was (mostly) done in the 90s though when EPCOT was the age of a spotty teenager… We all make mistakes in those years. Last time I was there they had added Soarin’ it was absolutely fantastic so here is hoping the future is bright.
I remember being in the World in 1991 for the 20th Anniversary of the opening and again in 1996 for the 25th, etc, but those days didn’t resonate with me, probably because at the time (I was 9 and 14 respectively) 1971 seemed like pre-history. EPCOT, my favourite park turns 25 today though, which makes it the same age as me, so perhaps that’s why it means something to me. I hope to still be going and enjoying it in another 25 years when I’ll be 50 too.
In work we use Subversion for version control and we are currently transitioning our backups onto Amazon S3. I was looking for a way to backup the Subversion repository to Amazon S3 when I came across Max Schöfmann’s post-commit hook script. Each time a commit is performed it dumps the changes to a file using svnadmin and then loads that file onto S3.
The script does have a limitation though. When it creates a dump it is put into the configured dump directory and uploads it into the S3 bucket with a filename that only refers to the revision numbers contained the in file. When a dump is created from another repository it will upload the resulting file to the same bucket and potentially overwrite a dump from a different repository with the same filename. One way around this would be to create multiple copies of the script with different configurations to put the backups into different buckets. This is not ideal. As our projects have a repository each, I had to modify the script to work with multiple repositories.
The script now assumes the last part of the path to a repository to be the name of that repository. It will use this to store the local dumps (if you keep them) in seperate directories and also to prefix the files that are loaded to S3 with this name so that the files do not conflict. I have also modified the restore script so you can pass it the name of the repository you want to restore and the path to restore it to. Thus one copy of the script can manage the backup of multiple repositories.
It was an interesting little project to play around with as I’ve hardly looked at any Ruby before so I’ve dipped my toe into that pond for the first time. It certainly seems easy enough to pick up and read anyway. Also, obviously big thanks go to Max for creating the original script. Full instructions for installation are on his page. Don’t forget to test the restore function – if it doesn’t work then you’ll just cause yourself problems when the worst happens!
You would imagine that the 20:52 train from Birmingham New Street to Ledbury would be a quiet train. That’s what I thought as I plonked myself down at a table seat. There was loads of room on the train. I could put my bag on the seat next to me and keep my iPod Nano on the table without fear taking up more than my fair share.
I pretty much had the carriage to myself, but then, just before the train left the station 2 adults and gaggle of ankle biter appear.
“Do you want to sit at a table?†the more shrill adult says to her progeny, standing next to my table.
“I already amâ€Â, I think to myself, “go and spread yourselves somewhere I’m not. There are at least 3 other empty tables in this carriage alone.†They all sat down next to me. I grumpily moved out of my slouching position to make room.
Within minutes, one of the kids made a grab for the shiny iPod. I moved it out of the way and put it down by my side. Then two of the kids start arguing over a book, engaging in a tug of war over the magazine I was reading propped up on my side of the table. I hear no remonstrations from the adults. Admittedly, I had my iPod turned on, so I there might have been something said, but I saw no evidence of the usual “the man will be angry if you don’t behaveâ€Â.
I just don’t get it. We all have to share public transport, so why on a nearly empty train do people have to come and inflict their kids on other passengers (i.e. me). I would go as far to say it is rude. It shows a disregard for your fellow passenger. You might find your kids annoying, but at least put them somewhere they only annoy you, not others. They should invent some sort of ASBO for people like that.
Or, users of public transport should be given un-removable stickers with “A Bloody Menace†to stick on annoying kids..
Back in January, I got my MacBook. We’ve lived a happy life together since then, but I was apprehensive before I got it. Would I get on with Mac OS X? Surely no one could live with just one mouse button?
Of course, there is baggage attached to owning a MacBook. That is, the MacBook is the “junior” model in the Apple laptop range. Do I think I should have gone for a MacBook Pro? There are a few features that the Pro has that the MacBook doesn’t.
I think the main ones are a proper 3D graphics processor, a metal case and most tempting of all, a backlit keyboard. On the otherside though, the MacBook does have a couple of things in it’s favour over the Pro though. First off, it’s smaller and therefore slightly more portable. The smallest size you can get a Pro in is 15.4″, whereas a MacBook is a lightweight 13.3″. The second thing is price. It’s a lot cheaper than the Pro model. I haven’t really missed the 3D graphics because the only games I’ve played on here are Civ 4 and Chess. I would love to have a backlit keyboard though and that is perhaps the only thing I envy about the MacBook Pro. I wanted to find the extra few hundred pounds just to have one, but in the end I couldn’t justify the extra cost. After all, most of the time I’m listening to music, writing stuff on my blog or in Pages (the word processor in iWork) or doing some web development, all of which the MacBook does perfectly. So yeah, I’m glad I made the switch to a Mac, and I’m very happy with my MacBook.
Regular readers at a certain Herefordshire based bill payments company may wish to note that my comments about Microsoft products aren’t defamatory
I’ve been trying out Safari on Windows recently. It seems pretty good – it renders fonts really nicely, just as it does on a Mac. Performance seems good, although I don’t know how much quicker it is than Firefox, other than what Apple claims. Firefox has never felt particularly sluggish to me, but I guess in these times of broadband it will start to become the browser that affects render times rather than download speed. I wonder if that’ll start to affect how we design web pages? I guess the simplest, standard compliant ways will continue to be the best.
I think at least in the short to medium term, I’ll be sticking to Firefox as my main browser – tools like Firebug and the Web Developer extension just make it the perfect platform for development. However, the new Web Inspector in Safari 3 looks like it might be offering some strong competition for the hearts and minds of developers. I have been trying to make sure I do my morning reading on Google Reader using Safari, and I try and keep my to-do list on Basecamp open in Safari. We’ll see where we go from here…
I saw this a while back on TechCrunch and it made me laugh. I think there are good uses for something like this, but I don’t think we’ll see it on a large scale for consumers for another 10-20 years yet…
I’ve never quite understood the messages they put before films about piracy being like stealing. I mean I get the meaning, piracy is illegal, but I don’t think they make much of a dent in the movie piracy. After all, these warnings tend to be on films you’re watching legally, so plainly you’re not engaging in piracy at that moment. Hence they’re probably there to stop you being tempted to get that illegal DVD or download of film that you have not yet seen. I don’t think telling the viewer that it is illegal is the right approach to take though, because they almost certainly know that already.
When I saw Pirates 3 at the cinema a couple of weeks ago, there was a new anti-piracy ad that I think perhaps could be more effective. It told the viewer that watching a pirated movie, perhaps with people walking through shot, didn’t match the experience of watching it in a proper cinema, which is exactly right – the reason I don’t download films I want to see is because watching a version someone videoed on the screen of my laptop is nowhere near the cinema experience, on the big screen with a really good sound system.
Following on from that, I think one of the reasons there is so much piracy with DVDs and downloading them, especially in this country, is that there doesn’t seem to be any legal way of obtaining a movie on your computer. I’d quite happily buy films from iTunes if I could, but for some reason we’ve still not got that capability here (it took 13 months for the iTunes store to debut in the UK after its launch, it’s now 20 months since video debuted in the US). I’m not aware of any other movie download services in this country, so the only option to get them digitally is to either download them (illegal) or rip them from the original DVDs (I think also illegal).
The situation with TV shows seems to be a step backward from the plain old video to me as well. Both the BBC iPlayer and Channel 4’s 4OD service deliver high quality video, but these videos mostly expire after 7 days or 48 hours respectively. If I’d videoed the program I could watch it to my hearts content and would only have to pay for the cost of the media. With these new services, if you want a version you can keep, or play on a Mac or Linux (as these services use Microsoft DRM technology) then you’ll have to either stump up for the whole series on DVD, or download it illegally. Why, when enthusiasts create the technology to quickly and easily distribute large media files don’t the content producers embrace it, and at least make a bit of money out of it? No, instead they go down the same route other people have walked paying no heed to what others have already learnt…
females had none of the bite marks that are usually inflicted on their gender during shark sex.
I know what you’re thinking – “has Alex been reading shark porn again?” No, I haven’t. Anyway, why do you automatically wonder if I’ve been reading shark porn again? I’ve never read shark porn! Why does your mind go straight for the porn? I’d worry about yourself reader before going off the deep end with your musings about me and shark porn.
Anyway, that quote comes from a BBC News story about a bonnethead shark (related to the hammerhead shark, but it’s head doesn’t look like a bonnet to me…) that managed to asexually reproduce in captivity. I say managed, I don’t know if it was trying to do it, or it just happened.
As a man, this development worries me – if something as complex as a shark can reproduce without the male of it’s species, how far away are we from the human being being able to do it? A previous study I read about showed that the male of the species in mammals is rubbish at copying the Y chromosome so it becomes damaged each time. Eventually it will become so damaged that males are sterile. There was a silver lining though – a mammal in Russia has been found that jumped that shark (whether or not it was an asexually reproduced shark we don’t know) and now has males with no Y chromosome. Somehow the genetic code got moved to some other chromosome, probably as part of males being rubbish at copying it.
I’ll admit this is a strange post, but I wasn’t the one that brought up shark porn. That was you.
I started my new job today as a “Senior Web Developer” at a company between Birmingham and Coventry. My new place already seems much better than allpay.net, where I worked from September 2003 up until last week. I can have coffee at my desk now, for one thing. I’m currently staying in a room in Birmingham during the week, but I’ll be able to work at home at least a couple of days a week once I am settled in, which is great.
I will miss everyone I worked with at allpay.net – but I won’t miss the company and it’s attitudes towards it’s staff.
Sainsbury’s seems to be a complete nightmare (at least for me) whenever I need to go in quickly and pick up a few things because I can’t find anything. Things aren’t where I would expect. For example, I wanted kitchen roll. Kitchen roll is generally with the toilet rolls in the paper wrapped around cardboard aisle. Not in Sainsbury’s their not. Kitchen roll is with detergents, which is… obvious.
I also wanted some tomato ketchup. Luckily I have learnt from previous Sainsbury’s wanderings that condiments are in the frozen section, because of course pickles do go with turkey twizzlers…
After my experience with UKfast, I expect Mr Sainsbury to ring me up personally and offer to rearrange my local stores to my liking (and get some more ciders in please). I think that’s fair.
Oh, and the taste the difference beef joint I bought to roast has instructions about cooking the meat slowly to improve it’s flavour, then starts off by instructing you to pre-heat the oven to 250 degrees C. Eh?
